YouTube 2011 orchestra conducting online auditions

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas rehearses with the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York.

NEW YORK - A cyberspace-based orchestra is conducting online
auditions to find the best players to appear at a music summit in
Australia that will be live-streamed on the Web.

The call for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 opened last
week.

YouTube launched its orchestra project last year with a sold-out
Carnegie Hall concert featuring more than 90 musicians from 30
countries, including a surgeon-violinist and a professional poker
player-cellist.

The announcement for this year's auditions was made at Carnegie
Hall - part publicity stunt by its producers, part vanity trip by
its participants, part opportunity to attract a younger crowd to
classical music.

Musicians must upload audition videos of designated pieces to
demonstrate their musical and technical abilities at http://www.youtube.com/symphony." target=
"_blank">www.youtube.com/symphony. Any instrumentalist may also
submit an improvisation based on a new piece called "Mothership" by
composer Mason Bates for an opportunity to play a solo.

After the auditions end Nov. 28, an expert panel from leading
orchestras will narrow entries. YouTube's global community of
hundreds of millions of viewers will then be invited to vote for
the semifinalists, from Dec. 10 to 17. Winners are to be announced
Jan. 11.

Starting March 13, the selected musicians will spend a week in
rehearsals and master classes, both online and in person, taught by
members of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic,
the Sydney Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York
Philharmonic and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

The summit peaks with a March 20 performance streamed live on
YouTube, a subsidiary of Google Inc. based in San Bruno, Calif.

"We helped fundamentally challenge the norms of an entire
industry and provided a digital meeting place for classical
musicians around the world," said Ed Sanders, YouTube's senior
marketing manager.